Nixon in China (1987). John Adams /silly dances/

While Nixon in China may be a candidate for canonical status, I have my doubts after having now seen it again last week in SF after first seeing it in LA back in the 80s. While this latest production was vivid, there were enough troubling moments.

And then there was the stupid stuff. When the projection designer Sean Nieuwenhuis wasn't creating imaginative atmospherics, he displayed American flags flapping in the wind, as if applying for a job at one of this summer's political conventions. Exaggerated makeup and wigs turned characters into caricatures. A series of portraits, morphing Nixon into Mao wound up with something resembling a Photoshopped Jack Benny. Though he's a Chinese artist, Wen Wei Wang was responsible for the staid choreography of the opera's Red Detachment of Women parody. The silly dances made for Richard and Pat Nixon, Mao, Chiang Ch'ing and, most egregious of all, Henry Kissinger should not have been allowed by the TSA to cross the border from Canada to the U.S. Still, this was Nixon in China.

I also found the dancing distracting and still don't know what to make of the morphing banner.

On the other hand, melodies! I had an ear-worm of News Has a Kind of Mystery for several days this week, which was not unpleasant.

Over 20 previous aworks posts on Nixon in China here. A page of the intro text to the opera here.